Allow passing "delete=False" to TemporaryDirectory

[anntzer]

BPO	25024
Nosy	@birkenfeld, @ncoghlan, @pitrou, @bitdancer, @serhiy-storchaka, @maurorodrigues, @asottile, @epicfaace, @CAM-Gerlach, @septatrix, @nyuszika7h, @beliaev-maksim
PRs	bpo-29982: Add "ignore_cleanup_errors" param to tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() #24793
Files	TemporaryDirectory_delete_false.patch

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2020-03-26.19:32:11.879>
created_at = <Date 2015-09-08.05:36:20.331>
labels = ['type-feature', 'library']
title = 'Allow passing "delete=False" to TemporaryDirectory'
updated_at = <Date 2021-11-02.10:35:39.100>
user = 'https://github.com/anntzer'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2021-11-02.10:35:39.100>
actor = 'beliaev-maksim'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2020-03-26.19:32:11.879>
closer = 'serhiy.storchaka'
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2015-09-08.05:36:20.331>
creator = 'Antony.Lee'
dependencies = []
files = ['40694']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 25024
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 22.0
messages = ['250158', '250217', '250386', '250387', '252375', '364345', '364453', '364458', '364461', '364466', '364468', '365103', '365105', '365106', '365107', '365108', '365109', '382595', '387785', '388220', '394462', '405499']
nosy_count = 12.0
nosy_names = ['georg.brandl', 'ncoghlan', 'pitrou', 'r.david.murray', 'serhiy.storchaka', 'maurosr', 'Anthony Sottile', 'epicfaace', 'CAM-Gerlach', 'Nils Kattenbeck', 'nyuszika7h', 'beliaev-maksim']
pr_nums = ['24793']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'rejected'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue25024'
versions = ['Python 3.6']

[anntzer]

I would like to suggest allowing passing "delete=False" to the TemporaryDirectory constructor, with the effect that the directory is not deleted when the TemporaryDirectory context manager exits, or when the TemporaryDirectory object is deleted.

I realize that this would effectively duplicate the functionality of mkdtemp, but this is similar to the redundancy between NamedTemporaryFile(delete=False) and mkstemp, and would make it easier to switch between the two behaviors (which is useful e.g. when debugging, where you may need to look at the temporary files "post-mortem").

[bitdancer]

The two cases are not parallel, in that NamedTemporaryFile closes the file at the end of the context manager, whereas the *only* thing the TemporaryDirectory does is delete the directory on cleanup.

There is some value to the "parallel interface" argument, so I'm only -0 on this.

[serhiy-storchaka]

I'm inclined to reject this idea too.

[pitrou]

The idea looks ok to me, but you'd have to provide a patch.

[maurorodrigues]

Hi everybody!
This is my second patch on the community, although the first one is not merged, so any feedback is appreciated.

I've added tests to cover this new situation and docs to let people know about the possibility of keeping their temporary directories for debugging purposes.

Regarding the code itself, I've also made a 'design decision' to remove the directory even when created with delete=False if cleanup method is called explicitly, so I would like to hear your thoughts on that matter specially if you don't agree with it.

[asottile]

I would certainly like to see this, it would eliminate my last few hand rolled temporary directory contexts

Mauro would you be interested in re-posting this patch as a PR to github? (or allowing someone else to carry your patch forward?)

[maurorodrigues]

Hi Anthony,

Thanks for asking, yeah I'm interested in push a new version. I'll do it later today and I'll post a link to the pr here.

[serhiy-storchaka]

What is your use case Anthony?

[asottile]

one example is here: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit/blob/bb6f1efe63c168d9393d520bd60e16c991a57059/pre_commit/store.py#L137-L139

where I would want cleanup in the exceptional case

another (related but different) closed-source use case involves creating a temporary directory that may be deleted and currently has to be guarded by:

 shutil.rmtree(..., ignore_errors=True)

(making TemporaryDirectory not useful since it crashes if the directory goes missing)

there's additionally the problem of readonly files on windows, and readonly directories elsewhere being undeletable without a custom rmtree but I think that's a different issue entirely -- https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit/blob/bb6f1efe63c168d9393d520bd60e16c991a57059/pre_commit/util.py#L250-L267

[serhiy-storchaka]

If you want the conditional cleanup, then TemporaryDirectory is obviously a wrong tool. mkdtemp looks more appropriate.

If you remove directory in process of working with temporary directory, would it help if you create a subdirectory in the temporary directory and work with it (including conditionally removing)?

As for the readonly files, was not this problem solved by PR 10320?

[asottile]

oh! that's neat, yeah hadn't been following closely enough it seems, good to hear that the readonly thing is fixed!

[maurorodrigues]

So per Serhiy comment can I assume the patch is not necessary? If so I believe the issue should be closed as well.

[asottile]

Serhiy's comment provides workarounds but are still (imo) inferior to supporting this.

I would really like for this api to match that of NamedTemporaryFile which has the same delete=... option